She may have dropped it out of the blue to bypass critics, bamboozle pirates and deliver her latest opus straight to fans but pop’s reigning queen has, at least, delivered the goods.

Beyoncé Knowles's fifth solo offering, titled BEYONCÉ, is an event album worthy of her superstar status: it's sexy and smart, with a stripped back modernity that allows the character in her voice to flourish, and stamped with visual wit and swagger. It is also rude enough to make young Beyoncé fans and their parents weak at the knees, although possibly for different reasons.

Previous albums have suffered from a tendency to show off across too many genres and use her powerhouse voice to cover up the weakness of material.

For all its length (16 tracks) and elaborate staging (with videos for every song), the album has a focus and intensity unusual in multi-writer ensemble productions, a sense of purposefulness that holds the attention even when the songs sometimes drift off in search of a chorus. Or maybe it’s just a classic case of distraction, with Beyoncé shaking her assets on screen every time the attention wanders.

It almost goes without saying that the singing is great. Beyoncé is one of the most technically gifted vocalists in pop, with gospel power, hip-hop flow and a huge range. What’s unusual is the restraint she exhibits here, letting melodies unfurl over subdued beats, and holding back from vocal pyrotechnics in ways that increase rather than release tension.

On the outstanding track Superpower (composed with Frank Ocean and the ubiquitous producer Pharell Williams), the way her low, supple vocal is suddenly coloured by multi-tracked Destiny’s Child-style harmonies is fabulous.

The beats exhibit a similar quality of restraint. The sound of the album is spaced-out electro R’n’B, with subdued pulses, ambient effects and throbbing grooves that sneak up on you, threatening to explode but only occasionally transforming into full-blown dancehall stormers.

Song structure is loose (which has been true of other Beyonce albums, with too many studio cooks possibly to blame), but it feels like a strategy rather than a failing. When a chorus does appear, singer and listener alike wrap themselves around it with a sense of relief that, judging by the videos, is intended to be orgasmic.

The bulk of the album is X-rated stuff, perhaps the rudest mainstream pop album since Madonna’s Erotica. Beyoncé has always seemed quite a clean-cut girl next to her husband Jay-Z's protégée, Rihanna – but it is as if, post-motherhood, Beyoncé now wants to assert some adult credentials. There are lots of sensuous, grinding slow jams about sex, accompanied by videos of her flaunting her backside, watched by her cigar-smoking husband as if he's a voyeur at a strip show. It’s not exactly subtle.

On Rocket, the video cuts between a power drill in action and Beyoncé shuddering with pleasure. Lyrics are crammed with double entendres (“Reach right into the bottom of my fountain / dip me under to where you can feel my river flow / Rock it till water falls”) and when Jay-Z joins her to rap on Drunk In Love, he dispenses with subtlety altogether (“slick your panties to the side, I ain’t got time to take your drawers off”).

You could get into a headspin about the mixed messages. Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie delivers a feminist empowerment speech over the dirty groove of Flawless, while Beyoncé yells “Bow down b--ches”.

And the opening track, Pretty Hurts, is a fantastic smoky pop song with speechy lyrics about the tyranny of the beauty industry – set to a video of sexy girls in bikinis. It’s having your cake and eating it, and then throwing it up in the toilet afterwards.

Yet Beyoncé seems to understand that these tensions and contradictions are what keeps pop music interesting. This album was originally slated for release in advance of her 2013 world tour, but was held back amidst reports that she was dissatisfied with material. She’s taken the time to get it right, and the results put this year’s offerings from Lady Gaga, Miley Cyrus, Katy Perry and Britney Spears back in Beyoncé’s ample shade.

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